Mate!
You forgot the tried and true tradition of threatening them with the ACCC and making a stink to "A current affair" ;)
Nice write up though
Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
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Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#32> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?
I wish he had poked around the Java code and looked for what might be triggering that.
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#33I love this kind of content, and the level of detail is just perfect for tech-adjacent people like me.
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#34Badass! I wonder if anyone has done work to reverse engineer the USB serial connection and integrate it with Home Assistant.
It seems like you can already integrate Home Assistant with tablet - https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/advantage_air/
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#35> The original ezone tablet had been running Android 6.0, this Samsung was still on 5.0 but I didnt think that would cause any issues so I got started on doing what was clearly missing: The required apps. All ezone apps are available both on the Advantage Air website and the apkpure site. I only learned of the apkpure site from a post claiming he had been directed to it by a AA tech support person. Redirecting your c…
The apps are signed, so it's possible to compare signatures against the originals. I haven't seen any reports of signatures not matching from Apkpure, though certainly possible.
But more importantly, what's the actual threat vector here? This isn't his personal phone. Just don't connect the tablet to your Wi-Fi. What's it going to do, sneakily increase your temperature by 1 degree?
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#36Any idea if that "POE board" has a FTDI USB to UART chip on it ?
Yeah given that USB doesn’t work over long distances there is probably a simple serial protocol waiting to be reverse engineered.
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#37this guy should sell it.....
ha, I thought the same thing.
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#38This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…
I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily ava…
How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require any safety precautions besides turning off the power?
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#39This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…
The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here.
We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts.
Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade associations who say the rules are there to prevent people being 'scammed' by untrained 'handymen' and are there for your own protection. This regulatory capture means that legally you need to complete a four year apprenticeship before you're allowed to change a plug! And another one if you want to do any basic water plumbing.
I wouldn't be surprised if what the guy did in this blog is strictly speaking illegal - for instance when it comes to data cables, you need to be a qualified electrician with data specialty to install them. You can plug ethernet cables into your computers yourself (wow! such privilege!), but if you install them even by getting some stick-on plastic conduit and passing the cable through that, you're in contravention and could potentially be fined, up to thousands of dollars. For sticking some plastic tubes to the wall in your own house.
Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
#40> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?
knowing a lot of these companies. it wouldn't really matter if it fell inside of the warranty. they would simply screw a lot of people over until there's a class action lawsuit (or whatever equivalent is in that country) where they get a slap on the wrist for not honoring warranty claims.
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